


no use for sails

by openended



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Developing Relationship, Guest Starring: Sera, Healers, Healing, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warrior Adaar forgets to duck, but shrugs off his injury. Dorian knows it's more than just a scratch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no use for sails

_Flashes of silver amidst splashes of black ichor. Demons howling, wailing, screaming. Sera giggling madly, her arrows flying straight and true. Adaar’s gold-tipped horns gleaming in the sunlight. A horn of valor, followed by a war cry. The shimmering barrier falls, but he quickly pulls a new one around them all._

_A spray of blood, red this time. Adaar down on one knee, shield raised against the pride demon’s sparking whips._

_Rift almost closed, but the pride demon’s laughter echoes through the snow-covered hills. Cassandra, then, behind it with her sword. Sera’s bow pulled tight. Dorian’s knuckles white, gripping his staff hard and beginning the spell. The demon raises its claws over Adaar._

_An arrow in its eye, sword in its spine, and bolt of flashfire across its chest, and the demon crumples._

_Adaar closes the rift while kneeling in the snow. He struggles to his feet. Blood runs down his arm, thin rivers of red from his shoulder, dripping onto the snow._

“I’m fine, Dorian.” Adaar grumbles, but he takes the blanket Dorian settles around his shoulders and tugs it tighter. 

Dorian doesn’t miss the wince in Adaar’s face - small, though noticeable, a quick twist of pain in his lips and twitch of his eyes - and sits beside him in front of the fire, watching the flames in the darkness. They made it to camp before sunset without further incident, save for a handful of wolves Sera picked off at a distance, and Adaar had only accepted the most cursory of medical attention from an Inquisition healer. Dorian has thoughts about that, lots of them, and has kept quiet until now.

“You should have someone look at that shoulder,” he says.

(Adaar hasn’t gone down since Dorian’s known him. Since Redcliffe. Not even against that dragon in the Plains, the one that managed to knock Cassandra flat on her back more than once.

He’s come back with his fair share of scrapes and scratches and bruises, and two very broken ribs courtesy of a cranky druffalo, but he’s not gone down. Dorian had just taken it as fact - Adaar stays standing.

But today he hadn’t.

And an Inquisition healer half his size and fully terrified of him isn’t going to cut it.)

“I said I was fine.” He _harrumph_ s and pulls the blanket even tighter, refusing to look at Dorian.

If Adaar weren’t seven and a half feet tall with horns, and if he didn’t carry around a war hammer that’s probably three times heavier than Dorian is soaking wet, the grumpiness might border on _adorable_. As it is, the grumpiness looks _ridiculous_ and is bordering on _annoying_ , since Dorian knows that a healing poultice and a haphazard bandage isn’t going to bring Adaar’s shoulder even remotely toward _fine_.

What’s worse is that Adaar damn well knows it, too.

Dorian stands. “Come on,” he says. “Up. Into the tent with you.” He points sternly toward the tent they’re sharing. Practical, the tent sharing. Sera and Cassandra get one, he and Adaar get another. Nothing to do with any feelings he has for Adaar (or Adaar has for him), and certainly nothing to do with a kiss in a Skyhold library alcove.

(Definitely - _definitely_ \- nothing to do with that. And if he’s woken up more than once with Adaar’s arm flung around his waist, well. Emprise du Lion _is_ freezing. And Adaar is warm and solid and…not the point. Adaar’s _shoulder_ is the point. Not sleeping, or kissing, or what happens during the sleeping or after the kissing. 

Dorian shakes his head, clearing his mind.)

Adaar stares up at him, firelight glinting off his dark skin. He lifts an eyebrow, but Dorian is an immovable object when he’s set his mind to something. Dorian raises his own eyebrow and tilts his head. Adaar sighs in defeat, and stands and walks over to their tent, ducking as he steps in.

If Sera has any smart remark over what just occurred, she keeps it to herself, at least until Dorian’s out of earshot.

Dorian follows Adaar into the tent and, with a wave of his hand, creates a ball of light that he gently tosses into the corner, illuminating the whole space. “Off,” he says, pointing to Adaar’s shirt.

“If you’re looking to get me naked, you could sugarcoat it a bit,” Adaar says, not unkindly, but follows Dorian’s instructions and starts to unbutton his shirt.

“If I’m looking to get you naked,” Dorian says, “it’s not going to be anywhere near snow.”

At that, Adaar smirks. “Skyhold has snow.” He gingerly shrugs off the shirt and turns his injured shoulder toward Dorian.

Dorian huffs and carefully peels off the bandage. “If I’m looking to get you naked, it’s not going to be anywhere near _this much_ snow.”

When he gets the bandage off, he’s glad that Adaar can’t see his reaction. The cut’s deep and long, worse than Dorian imagined. He runs his fingertips along the red, angry edges. He closes his eyes and mentally reaches out into the Fade, gathering strings of greenish gold magic into himself. 

“Now, hold still,” he says. With a slow exhale, he pushes the magic from his fingers into Adaar’s skin, sending the threads into torn muscle and tendon, knitting him together again. It’ll scar, he’s not _that_ good of a spirit healer, but it’ll heal faster and cleaner, and without infection. “There,” he says after a few silent minutes of work. “All done.”

On a whim, he leans forward and kisses Adaar’s skin just above the cut. He lets his lips linger a bit, but not too long, and then pulls away to put a fresh bandage over it.

Adaar experimentally rolls his shoulder, testing out the wound. He blinks rapidly in surprise and turns to Dorian. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yes, well. Try not to make a habit of needing my services.”

A smirk again, broader and more teasing than before. “What if I want your _services_?”

Dorian’s own lips form a similar smirk. “ _Those_ services I will gladly offer when the level of snow isn’t quite so high, and a certain elven archer isn’t sitting with her ear pressed against our tent.” He bangs his fist against the canvas.

Sera curses at him. “I was going to leave if you two started kissing!” she grumbles, but walks away, leaving them alone.

Adaar laughs quietly, and then rests his forehead against Dorian’s. “Then I will gladly take you up on them when we return.”


End file.
